UnderstandingTools

What the hell is this? I'm too embarrassed to ask.

Overview

There are a lot of very digital, 2D people like myself who come to HardwareHackNight at SudoRoom. Actually working with 3 dimensional objects, wrenches, screws and Arduino electronics is so darn fun. There are so many squirrels and bright shiny objects scattered across the internet, such that digital 2D people like me run back and forth with dozens of unfinished, somewhat advanced projects without truly getting down and enjoying hardware hacking.

Tone

• Lighthearted jest
• "I don't know what I'm doing but this is fun"
• we love SudoRoom hackerspaces

Goals

• Learn to walk before we run
• Stop pretending we know what we are doing with hardware before we know what we are doing
• Actually understand what the tools are
• Eventually improvise so that we aren't running off elaborate tutorials
• Become true hardware hackers ! ElectronicsKits and maker gifts are nice, but there are so many tools and scrap pieces here at SudoRoom.

Record

• The Screwdriver Adventure (the tools, not the white supremacist oi band)
• Hammers, nails and Mazslow Oh My!
• Nails, screws and all those things. It's not just for goth girl jewelry
• Mapping out the Wood Scrap Archipelago at SudoRoom
• Those giant wood saw power grinder things that architecture grad students always slice their fingers off with
• Soldering for reals. Soldering circuits onto circuits onto circuits and stuffed animals onto burning man costumes. So very San Francisco
• Wires crossed and cut. What are they for? People seem to use them to connect things to other things and make stuff happen.
• LEDs - Glue them on small children. Program them? There's a guy at Noisebridge who's into some elaborate clubaike atmosphere but how does a beginner begin?

What the hell?

What the hell will result out of this flurry of wiki activity and time spent gossiping at the hackrrspace on Tuesday nights? Well, hopefully at the very least:

• admissions of guilt and personal humiliation at not knowing what the hell everything is even though Google has it laid out for me
• Some kind of guide in the darkness to the amazing set of tools we have for the digitally handicapped such as myself
• And maybe some fun comics. I think it'd be fun to spice this wiki and blog posts with some kind of personal humiliation.

Ladies and gentlemen, one cannot simply continue by pretending doing an Arduino tutorial is the real thing as hardware hacking. We have to take these wimpy artist cartoon characters and put them through all sorts of trials and tribulations until they emerge, glistening and gleaming, as people who actually know how to be true hardware hackers! If that means building a Raspberry pi solar panel under the shoulder boulder holders out of recycled activist lace panties, so be it.

)

Let's do our best to make hardware hacking less serious.

Humanity

• Romy